


An Unexpected Visitor

by Twice_before_Friday



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: Malcolm has been home recuperating after being rescued from the Junkyard Killer.  But an unexpected visitor brings some unforeseen baggage.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will definitely become non-canon once the show comes back on and we find out what John Watkins is doing with Malcolm and what Eve is really up to, but it's fun to speculate!
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

The buzzer rang as Malcolm was limping back to his bed. He hesitated, debating if he should just ignore it, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. There was a very real possibility that it was Gil or Dani, coming to check on him. Again. Gil had a key and wouldn’t hesitate to use it, but if it was Dani and he didn’t answer, there was definite potential for his door being kicked down. 

He slowly made his way to the intercom, holding his ribs and keeping his weight off of his left leg as much as he could. It had only been 48 hours since the team rescued him from the Junkyard Killer and he was spending most of his time recuperating in bed. He knew he'd gotten off lucky, that John Watkins was intending to make things much more painful for him, but the team had done their job brilliantly and found him before too much damage could be inflicted. So if they needed to keep checking on him to ease their minds, he would happily subject himself to their scrutiny.

He rested his forearm against the wall next to the intercom as he leaned in and pushed the button. “Hello?” He closed his eyes as he waited for a response, but they shot back open as he heard Eve’s voice come through the speaker, tinny and distant.

“Malcolm. Hi, it’s Eve Blanchard.” She sounded hesitant, unsure if she should even be there.

“Uh, oh. Um, hi Eve.” He stammered. “Did you want to… I mean, what are you…” he trailed off and let his head flop forward onto the intercom speaker. Affluent upbringing, prep school, Harvard education, and that was the most articulate sentence he could string together? He sighed and lightly rapped his forehead against the metal box a few times.

“Can I come up? I think we need to talk,” she replied to his less than eloquent statement. 

“Yes. Yes, of course. Come on up,” Malcolm buzzed her in immediately and unlocked the door, pulling it open and anxiously standing in the doorway to wait as she ascended the stairs to his apartment.

His palms were damp all of a sudden, and he quickly wiped them on his sweatpants, then looked down and realized he was in sweats and a worn t-shirt. He took half a step towards his bedroom, contemplating whether or not he should try to change, but Eve was already coming up the last flight of stairs.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” The uncertainty that he heard in her voice a moment ago was gone, replaced with concern as she took in his appearance. The right side of his face was bruised and swollen, courtesy of a swift kick to his head as he had tried to crawl away from John at one point during his captivity. The way he was holding his ribs and supporting himself on the door frame hinted at a wealth of further injuries beneath his clothes, as well.

She unconsciously reached towards his face, fingertips hovering over his cheekbone before she realized what she was doing and pulled her hand back as if she'd been burned.

He smiled sheepishly at her. “I’m fine. Really. It probably looks worse than it is.”

She raised her eyebrows, clearly not believing his assurances, but apparently decided to let it slide for the time being. They stood in awkward silence, Malcolm biting his lip and Eve scraping a nail along her cuticle, until Eve nodded towards the interior of his apartment and asked, “May I come in?”

“Of course,” he replied hastily, stepping back from the door and gesturing for her to come in. “I’m sorry. Please, come in.”

She skirted past him, making her way to the living room as she shrugged off her red woolen coat, draping it over the back of the sofa and placing her bag on the floor beside it. She turned to find Malcolm slowly making his way in behind her, clearly trying not to limp but failing miserably. She chewed at her bottom lip as she watched him struggle into the living room and tenderly lower himself onto the leather sofa. They both pretended not to hear the muted whimper that slipped out as his ribs protested the movement.

She took a seat on the opposite side of the sofa – as close to the kitchen, and therefore as far from Malcolm, as possible – posture stiff, hands tightly grasping her knees. “How are you, really?”

“I’m alright. I presume you already know what happened?” Malcolm eased himself back into the soft embrace of the corner, taking the pressure off his ribs.

“The broad strokes. I spent most of the time that you were missing with your mother. She was terrified that you were never going to be found.”

“Thank you for staying with her,” the sincere look of gratitude Malcolm gave her made her flush and look away. He reached out, wincing only slightly, and placed his hand over one of hers. “I mean it. Thank you for being a friend to her. She’s lucky to have you.”

She looked down at his hand on hers, eyebrows furrowing and tension settling in her shoulders. Malcolm, of course, noticed it right away and withdrew his hand with a soft apology.

“Look, Eve, I’m really glad you came over. I want to apologize for that night.” Malcolm's eyes were downcast, only casting occasional sidelong glances her direction as he continued, hands fidgeting in his lap. “I am so sorry. I never meant to scare you. The thought that I could have hurt you… killed you… makes me ill. I never meant for something like that to happen. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know, Malcolm. I got all of your texts and voicemails. I just needed some time to process what had happened.”

They sat in silence for a moment, neither of them sure where to go from there, before Eve broke the tension, “I feel like this conversation would be easier with a drink.” She reached over the edge of the couch and pulled a bottle of scotch from her bag, holding it up for Malcolm’s consent. He made to stand, obviously planning on getting glasses, but she stopped him with a hand on his knee. “Let me. Just. Take it easy.” He settled back into the cushions with a grateful smile.

She got up and went into the kitchen, opening a couple of cupboards before she came across the cut-glass tumblers. As she filled the glasses, she said, “full disclosure, I was with your mother most of the time as the police came to give her updates about the search for you, so I heard some things that maybe I shouldn’t have.”

Malcolm turned his body slightly to face her, “Oh? Such as?” He was obviously aiming for a casual tone, but missed the mark by quite a lot, apprehension underlying the question.

She avoided eye contact, focusing instead on the glasses in front of her. “Your mother had asked one of the detectives if John Watkins had perhaps taken you to the same place that your father and John took you on some sort of a camping trip when you were a boy. She thought that it might have something to do with a girl in a box.”

The tension in the room was thick and heavy and suffocating. They both remained perfectly still, letting the words hang in the air between them, weighing them down, neither of them wanting to be first to disturb the uneasy stillness.

Eve cleared her throat and continued after a moment. “She sort of filled me in on some of the details after the detective left.” She picked up the tumblers and slowly made her way into the living room, still avoiding looking in Malcolm’s direction. She held the glass out to him, and he took it with a murmured thanks, taking a healthy gulp of the warm amber liquid and wincing slightly at the smoky burn as it slid down his throat.

Eve settled back down on the couch, swirling the liquid in her own glass. Even just glancing over from the side of his eyes, Malcolm could read the trepidation and anxiety in Eve's bearing. He sighed and quietly said “You can ask me whatever you want to know. I owe you an explanation.”

She opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself, snapping her mouth shut. He could see her waiver before asking “What did you think you were seeing when you were swinging that knife at me?”

He could tell that it wasn’t the question that she was intending on asking, but he meant it when he said he owed her an explanation, so he was willing to start there. “Mother filled you in about me finding a girl in a box when I was a boy, and that everyone told me she didn’t exist?” He looked over to Eve, who gave a brisk nod. “My memories have always been… unreliable. I think my subconscious mind was trying to process some previously repressed memories by showing me visions of her. She kept asking me to find her. But that night, she was trying to strangle me, so I grabbed the knife to defend myself. It was so real, Eve, I thought she was trying to kill me. I am so sorry that you got caught up in that.” 

Eve was absently nodding but her eyes were staring off in the middle-distance, lost deep in thought. Malcolm gave her time to process, sipping his drink and waiting patiently for a response.

Finally she looked over to him, raising her chin and obviously trying to screw up her courage. She took a deep breath and, in a rush, asked “Did you know what your father was doing?” She pulled back her shoulders, preparing herself to press on, exhaling slowly before she continued on more calmly. “Did you help him?”

Malcolm’s first instinct was to deny it. But his father’s voice was floating in his head: we’re the same. And though he couldn’t remember actively helping his father, there were enough fragmented memories to make him question what had truly happened.

He looked her in the eye as he answered honestly. “I don’t know.”

She frowned as her eyes darted back and forth over his face, searching for signs of deception and finding none. Her posture relaxed slightly, but she somehow looked defeated rather than relieved. Malcolm tilted his head as he tried to get a read on her. She still looked nervous, almost apprehensive, but there was a resolve in the set of her mouth and the stiffness in her shoulders that told Malcolm that she wasn’t done with her questions.

“He threw a fit when you were taken,” she said suddenly, losing Malcolm completely. “Your father,” she clarified at his look of utter confusion.

“Wait. What?”

“Your mother pulled some strings to have him released from solitary confinement long enough that she could go talk with him. She thought he might have answers as to where John had taken you.”

Malcolm was dumbfounded. That his mother went to go see Martin was, frankly, shocking. The fact that he was just hearing about it now was downright astonishing.

“Is she alright?” he finally asked as the surprise wore off.

Eve looked almost sad at his response and Malcolm couldn’t understand why. He was having trouble keeping up with the emotions in the room, as well as the conversation. He was a profiler, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to read her micro-expressions. But he realized that it wasn’t that he couldn't read her emotions, it was that he couldn’t understand them in relation to their conversation. He was starting to wonder if the scotch was mixing poorly with the painkillers he had taken earlier. His head was starting to feel a little muddled.

“She’s a strong woman, she’ll always survive.” Eve responded, shaking Malcolm out of his wandering thoughts. “Apparently when she asked him if he knew where John took you, Martin got a little… unhinged. He didn’t know you were missing and didn’t take the news well. According to your mother, it took three guards to restrain him and they ended up having to sedate him. He was willing to fight his way out of the hospital to search for you.”

Malcolm felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. He didn’t even know how to begin processing this information. What did it mean? Did Martin actually care? Maybe even love him? And why was he only finding out about all of this now? Why didn’t Jessica tell him this when she came to see him at the hospital after he was rescued? There were so many questions circling in his head that it was making him dizzy.

And then he suddenly realized that it wasn’t the profusion of questions in his mind that was causing the dizziness, it was the fact that room was spinning and tilting on its axis. He looked over at Eve and she offered a rather apologetic grimace. She still looked sad and maybe a little unsure, but determination was overruling everything else.

Malcolm looked down at the drink in his hand and then back at Eve. “Whadya gimme?” he frowned at his slurred words as his head lolled forward. He tried to stand, but listed hard to the right before he had even gotten off the couch, landing with a thud on his side in front of Eve. She pushed the toe of her black Prada pump against his shoulder and nudged him onto his back. 

He still didn’t understand why she looked so sad. But then, he didn’t understand anything that was happening just now. 

“I’m sorry Malcolm. You don’t deserve this, but he really does love you.”

Malcolm fought hard to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids were so very heavy. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the hunting knife she pulled out of her bag.


	2. Chapter 2

He awoke slowly, feeling groggy and something akin to hungover; a drumline was pounding out an uneven rhythm in his head, his mouth tasted like dirty socks and his body ached in ways he couldn’t quite comprehend. He cracked open an eye and saw that it was dark outside, though he seemed to have left the lights on. It was only as he automatically moved to unclip his restraints, and couldn’t, that the events of the evening came flooding back to him. He tried to sit up, but the wrist restraints had been moved and tightened and now stretched his arms out wide to either corner of his bed. He lifted his head and looked down the length of his body and saw that his feet had been tied to the other two corners, leaving him spread-eagle on the bed with very little slack in the restraints to allow for movement.

His attempts to call out for help were stifled by several layers of duct tape, which had been wrapped over his mouth and around the back of his head. He looked around frantically, trying to make sense of what the hell had happened and when exactly everything went sideways. He could hear water running and the rustle of paper coming from the bathroom and decided to take advantage of his time alone to try and work at the restraints. Unfortunately, Eve appeared to have brought her own cuffs to use with his straps, and they did not have the quick-release catch that Malcolm’s usual restraints did. She also ensured that all of the straps were pulled taut enough that he wouldn’t be able to wriggle his way out.

Malcolm yanked and struggled as hard as he could in an effort to slip free, but the gnawing ache in his leg and the pull of his ribs soon made him realize that pure force perhaps wasn’t his best option for escape. Stilling himself, he looked over at the cuff around his wrist, analyzing its structure and design. He was working out if he could angle his thumb in just the right way so that a quick jerk would provide an adequate amount of pressure to dislocate his thumb, which would hopefully allow him to slip free of his bindings. He knew it was a long shot, but he was just twisting his wrist into position when the door to the bathroom opened. Malcolm’s heart stuttered in his chest before launching into overdrive, racing so fast that the thrumming swoosh of his blood echoing in his ears was all he could hear.

Eve walked over wearing one of the disposable paper suits that crime scene technicians often wore at the scene of a crime in order to keep their hair and epithelial cells off of the evidence. Malcolm’s mind helpfully supplied him with a flash of memory, reminding him of the knife that Eve had pulled out of her purse, and Malcolm was able to infer that Eve was wearing the suit for the exact opposite reason. To keep the evidence - his blood - off of her. She expected things to get messy.

Malcolm stared at her, pleading with wide eyes, begging without words for her to let him go, to rethink what she was doing. When she picked up the hunting knife from his bedside table, he shook his head violently and tried to urge her to reconsider. The words were lost to the duct tape, but his imploring tone came through loud and clear. 

Eve ignored his pleas and perched on the side of the bed next to his hip, looking surprisingly prim and regal for wearing a paper suit. She angled herself to face Malcolm and rested the knife across her knees, gently twisting the wooden handle in her perfectly manicured hands. She looked down at him with regret, and he could almost feel the remorse and grief rolling off of her. He still couldn’t wrap his head around what she was doing. Didn’t understand how he could have possibly missed something this big.

“I apologize for the subterfuge, Malcolm. And for, well…” she motioned to his bound form. “I want you to know that this really has nothing to do with you.”

He raised an eyebrow and made a muffled scoffing noise.

She smiled sheepishly at him and conceded his point with a tilt of the head. “Well. It has mostly nothing to do with you. I think this time it’s me that owes you an explanation.”

She took a steadying breath in before beginning. “You were right. That night when we played pool at the pub. I lost someone and it led me here, but not in the way you thought. My sister, Beth, was one of The Surgeon’s victims.”

Malcolm could suddenly see very clearly where this was going. And it wasn’t going to have a happy ending for him.

“When her body was found and we learned exactly how she had died…” Eve’s breathing hitched and her hand tightened around the hilt of the knife. “Our mother couldn’t handle it. She tried to get help, but it was just too horrifying to move past. One day I came home from school and found her body.” She swallowed hard as she shook herself of the painful memories, blinking back tears. “Martin Whitly took everything from me. And now I’m going to take away the only thing in this world that he loves.”

She placed the knife on the bed and slipped her fingers beneath the hem of Malcolm’s t-shirt, pulling it up to bunch around his armpits, baring his torso.

“It took me so many years to find a way to get close to your family, Malcolm. I wanted to know if you or your mother knew about your father's crimes back then. If you were covering for him. And, of course, I needed to find out the best way to hurt Martin Whitly.” She placed her hand softly over Malcolm’s heart and offered a sad smile. “This actually would have been a lot easier if you had known what he was doing all those years ago.”

She moved to kneel beside him on the bed, knees pressed snug against his bruised ribs as she grabbed the hunting knife. It was only 8 inches or so - Malcolm had much larger and much sharper blades just feet away - but it was suddenly the most fearsome weapon in the room. Malcolm thrashed and bucked, knowing that it was his last chance to get away before being filleted. He screamed as loudly as he could, but the layers of tape over his mouth prevented most of the sound from escaping.

“Oh Malcolm,” Eve said, hand once again resting on his bared chest. “You and I both know that your mother soundproofed the apartment before you moved in so that your night terrors didn’t have the neighbours calling the police. No one is going to hear you. It’s why I decided to do this here.”

Malcolm was still desperately struggling to get free, straining so hard against his bindings that his wrists and shoulders were popping. Adrenaline was surging through his system, keeping him from focusing on the pain that was lashing at his body – from the restraints that were scraping his wrists raw, from his ribs as they screamed at every heaving breath, from all of the other injuries he’d sustained in John's captivity that were being exacerbated by his every movement.

“The Surgeon disemboweled my sister,” Eve had to raise her voice slightly over Malcolm’s shouted pleas, “apparently he did it very methodically, keeping her alive while he pulled out her organs so that she would feel each body part he took out. I don’t have, or want, his knowledge of anatomy, so it will probably end far more quickly for you than it did for her. But I think your father will get the message all the same, when they find you with your organs laid artfully around you.” 

She brought the knife up in a two-handed grip and took a steadying breath as she hovered it about a foot above Malcolm’s stomach. A few tears escaped her eyes as she whispered, “I’m sorry that it had to be you, Malcolm.”

His body tensed and he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the pain. He didn’t see the play of emotions flickering across her face as a battle waged within her; one part of her needed to go through with the outrageous plan, while another more rational part was endeavoring to talk herself out of it. He didn’t see the flash of steel in her eyes as she remembered why she was doing it in the first place, why Martin Whitly deserved to suffer the same pain that she did. He didn’t see the gleam of the light on the blade as she secured her grip on the burnished wood handle. 

He also didn’t see Gil - who had come by to check on Malcolm and heard his stifled cries for help as he stood outside of the apartment door debating if he should knock or let himself in - as he came around the corner with his gun drawn. 

Malcolm's eyes shot open in surprise as Gil shouted, “drop the knife!” in a tone that left no doubt that he was willing to pull the trigger if she didn’t. The sudden intrusion startled Eve and she jerked around towards the unexpected visitor, but the knife was already in motion, its downward arc unstoppable.

As Eve twisted to face Gil, it changed the trajectory of the knife from the center of Malcolm’s abdomen to his left side, just below the ribs and blessedly clear of major organs. A scream tore from Malcolm’s throat as the blade ripped into his body, but he forced his eyes open to look at Gil and shook his head vigorously, willing him not to shoot her.

A flash of exasperation flashed over Gil’s face and Malcolm knew he got the message. If Eve had been aiming to stab Malcolm again, Gil would have shot without hesitation. But as it stood, the second the knife sunk into Malcolm’s body, she jerked her hands away. She was still kneeling on the bed beside him, but she had wrapped her arms around herself and was crying softly. Even through the haze of pain, a part of Malcolm’s mind spared a moment to notice how young she looked. And how lost. He recognized that slightly adrift look from his own reflection every time he looked in the mirror. Like it or not, he and Eve had a bond; they were two more victims of The Surgeon.

“Move slowly off the bed and keep your hands where I can see them,” Gil ordered, keeping his gun trained on Eve. He was keeping a close watch on her, making sure she didn’t reach for the knife, but his eyes kept flickering over to Malcolm; to the knife buried in his flank, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the tears he was trying, unsuccessfully, to hold back. 

Eve did as commanded and slowly backed off the bed. “Get on your knees,” Gil said once she was standing, and she slowly dropped to the floor. “Now on your stomach.”

Holstering his weapon, he lowered himself to the ground beside her and cuffed her hands behind her back. Her head was turned towards the living room, cheek pressed to the floor, and Gil could see the shock settling into her features. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t bring himself to care about that at the moment. He pulled out his phone and called for an ambulance, and then called Dani and told her to phone JT and get to Malcolm’s place immediately.

As soon as the scene was secured and backup had been called, he rushed over to Malcolm’s side. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do first. “Hey kid, you doing alright?” he asked as he grabbed a pillow from beside Malcolm’s head, pulling off the pillowcase and tossing the pillow aside. Malcolm nodded, but the pinched look to his eyes and the way his eyebrows were drawn together said otherwise.

“I’m sorry, Bright, but this is going to hurt,” Gil warned as he took the pillowcase and wrapped it around the blade where it met Malcolm’s skin. Malcolm groaned and pulled uselessly at his restraints, and suddenly Gil was glad he dealt with the knife prior to getting Bright free of his bindings. At least Bright wasn’t able to stop Gil from doing what needed to be done. Once the pillowcase was securely wrapped over the wound, Gil made quick work of the restraints, starting with the ankles before moving to Bright's hands. As he freed Malcolm’s right hand, he gently but firmly took it between his own hands and held it while he looked Malcolm in the eye. “You can’t touch the knife. I need you to nod if you understand me. Okay, Bright? You can’t touch the knife.” 

Malcolm nodded, but his eyes were starting to flutter and Gil was getting worried about blood loss. He quickly moved on to the second cuff, giving Bright’s hand a comforting squeeze before letting go. The duct tape was already wet with tears and saliva, making it easy to pull down from his mouth and cheeks, leaving it as a loose ring around his neck.

Gil had been keeping one eye on Eve the entire time, but she stayed unmoving on the ground where he left her, and Gil decided to leave her for the time being. He moved back to Malcolm’s side, distressed by the amount of blood that was seeping into the sheets. Malcolm’s breathing was rapid and shallow and Gil could tell he was trying to keep his chest still to avoid jostling the knife. When Gil applied pressure around the wound, Bright let out a pained groan, but bunched the sheets up in his fists and kept his hands away from the knife, as promised. 

“Hang in there, kid. Help is on the way.”

Malcolm nodded and whispered, “Thank you… for not… shooting her,” between panting breaths. Gil just shook his head, determined to dig into that later, once Bright was no longer bleeding all over his hands. In the meantime, he kept applying pressure and prayed for the ambulance to get there soon.

JT showed up first, having been at a nearby restaurant with his wife and some friends when Dani called. Gil heard his footsteps racing up the stairs before he came in with his gun drawn and quickly assessed the situation.

“Jesus, what the hell happened?” He leveled his gun at Eve, providing some additional peace of mind to Gil who could now focus 100% of his attention on Bright.

“I have no idea,” Gil huffed, an edge of tension in his tone that JT wasn’t used to hearing from his usually stoic leader. “I came by to check on Bright and heard him screaming. I’m not entirely sure what I walked in on. But for whatever reason, Bright didn’t want me to shoot her.”

JT cocked his head to look down at the form on the floor and arched an eyebrow. “Makes sense, since it’s his girlfriend,” He grumbled.

“What?!” Gil's head shot around to JT, eyebrows practically in his hairline.

“He brought her to the bar a while back. She seemed cool,” JT shrugged. “Apparently not.”

“What did you get yourself into, Bright?” Gil whispered as he looked down at Malcolm. Bright was looking back at him, blinking at him owlishly. 

“Not her fault,” he said quietly.

“Goddamnit, Bright, she just stabbed you! And who knows what she would have done if I hadn’t come in when I did.” Gil was sick and tired of Bright putting his own well-being at the bottom of the priority list. Malcolm whimpered beneath him and he realized that, in his frustration, he must have started pressing a little harder than he intended. He eased up on the pressure and took a steadying breath.

“JT, can you take her down to the station,” Gil said, turning his head towards the detective. “Have her booked for attempted murder--”

“No,” Malcolm interrupted, tugging lightly on Gil's sleeve, “not attempted murder, please.”

Gil looked Malcolm in the eye and firmly stated “Bright. We are not having this conversation while you’re bleeding to death, got it?” 

JT was already helping Eve off the ground. He had safely holstered his gun and was keeping a tight grip on her arm as he practically lifted her to her feet. She looked over at Malcolm once she was upright and the colour drained from her face. 

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Malcolm,” she whispered, bottom lip quivering as her eyes welled with tears.

“I know. I’m sorry, too,” he replied.

And wasn’t that just Malcolm all over, Gil thought. The woman just tied him up and stabbed him, and he was apologizing to her. Gil bit his tongue to keep his frustration at bay, while JT shook his head in disbelief.

“This is not a healthy relationship,” JT uttered under his breath as he led Eve out of the apartment.

Malcolm looked up at Gil and noticed the tense set of his shoulders, the way he was clenching his jaw, the deep line between his brows. It didn’t take a profiler to see how worried he was.

“I’m not bleeding to death,” he said as calmly as he could. His breath was still coming out a little too rapidly, but pain will do that. It hurt like hell, sure, but it didn’t feel like she’d hit anything vital. 

Gil huffed out a breath, “Looks a little different from here.” He closed his eyes and let his chin fall to his chest, utterly defeated, before speaking quietly, “This has to stop, Malcolm. I can’t keep watching you get hurt like this.”

Malcolm’s heart gave a painful twinge at the distress that was so clearly evident in the man’s words. He covered Gil’s hand gently with one of his own, careful to avoid the knife.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop getting hurt,” Gil said, looking at Malcolm with glistening eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Bright. And we’ve come too close, too many times these last few months.”

They heard footsteps on the stairs at the same time as the room was lit from the street below with flashing red and white lights through the windows. Dani hurried into the room and immediately came to Gil's side.

“Oh my God. Bright. What happened? The ambulance was just pulling up as I got here so the medics should be up in a minute.” She pursed her lips as she evaluated the scene before her. She realized there was nothing to be done that Gil wasn’t already doing, so she lowered herself to sit beside Malcolm, careful not to jolt the bed, and gently carded her hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and offered a small smile, grateful for a kind touch after the week he’d had.

Gil filled Dani in, helped along by breathy interjections by Malcolm, as they waited for the paramedics to make their way in. Dani's arrival helped to alleviate the uneasy feeling that had settled into the air between Malcolm and Gil, like a cool breeze on a stifling summer’s day. 

The almost-peaceful reprieve was soon interrupted by the paramedics as they hustled through the door and made directly for Malcolm. One of them had Bright hooked up to an IV before the other one could even take Gil’s place at Malcolm’s side to examine the wound. They worked fast, the picture of professionalism and expediency, as they loaded him onto the stretcher and prepared him for transport. Malcolm groaned and automatically reached for his side as they moved him, but Dani was right there and took hold of his hand, keeping him clear of the knife.

She smiled down at him and whispered, “You’re gonna be okay.”

He gave an awkward nod as the paramedics slipped an oxygen mask over his face. Gil noticed as Bright caught sight of the IV in him arm and glared at the line as he followed it up to the bag of saline that one of the medics was holding.

“No sedatives,” Gil instructed the medics, and Malcolm cast him a grateful smile then leaned his head back and closed his eyes, knowing Gil would make sure that he was alright. “He's also on a lot of medication,” Gil added, as he pulled his wallet out, heedless of the blood that was coating his hands and smearing all over his clothes. He pulled out a folded slip of paper and handed it to one of the paramedics, who opened it and read it with raised eyebrows. After the incident with the snake, Gil made Bright give him a list of medications that he was taking so that they didn’t run into any drug interaction issues if Malcolm was ever hospitalized again.

The medics started carting Malcolm out of the room, and Gil remained standing stock still, staring at the tangled mess of sheets on the bed, soaked in blood. Dani went over to him and lightly bumped his arm with her shoulder. He blinked down at her, worry etched in every line on his face.

“Go. Be with him,” she said. “I'll stay and process the scene.”

“Right. Thanks Dani,” he replied as he took a breath and headed for the door. “I’ll keep you posted,” he added hastily just as he was leaving the apartment.

Dani nodded and offered a tight smile, then pulled out her phone to call for CSU to come out to the scene. She would make sure that they had enough evidence to lock this woman up for life.

Gil made it to the street as they were loading Malcolm into the ambulance. He stood watching, noticing how damn small Bright looked on that stretcher, and how young he looked without his bespoke suit to lend some years to his boyish appearance. Gil thought back to all of times through the years that Malcolm had been seriously injured. The kid just kept getting hurt and it saddened Gil to think of the number of times he'd watched Malcolm being loaded into an ambulance. He wasn’t sure that he could do it anymore. 

And then Malcolm suddenly opened his eyes, looking slightly panicked, like he'd dozed off and forgotten what was happening. His eyes quickly fixed on Gil with that spooked puppy dog look that was just so typical of him, the look that tightened something in Gil’s chest and made him want to make everything better for Malcolm.

With a weary sigh, Gil climbed into the ambulance beside Bright and took his hand. He realized that, as much as he hated it, he would never want to miss riding in an ambulance with Bright. The kid was a danger magnet and would end up in the hospital a thousand more times. And the only thing Gil could think of that was worse than watching it happen over and over, was the thought of not being there with him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had trouble with this one. There hasn't been a whole lot of Eve in the show, so I'm not sure if she was maybe a little out of character? Hopefully nothing was too off. 
> 
> Also, I seem to keep hurting Malcolm. I'd apologize, but... well. I'm so not sorry.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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